One of the oddest quirks of the Internet is that news
sites and blogs are ruled by conservatives.

And I don’t mean run-of-the-mill conservatives, I
mean the people who make the teabag crowd seem like “Kumbaya” singers.

Look at the comment section under nearly any news
story or blog post and you’ll find them seething and hissing away about
whatever or whoever got their dander up. On my blog, that’s usually me. I’m the
chief dander-getter-upper, and I’m apparently quite good at it.

Last week, for instance, I wrote one, lone paragraph
about the Massachusetts election: “OK, all right, the Republicans won one in Massachusetts.
But from all their chest-pounding, you’d think Democrats had lost control of
both the House and Senate and that Obama was packing his bags to leave the
White House in shame. Dems lost one seat, people. One. All it means is
Republicans can filibuster – the Congressional equivalent of holding your
breath until you get your way. That’s it. That’s all. Yeesh. A little perspective,
puh-leez.”

That elicited more than 80 comments on my blog and
20 more on Facebook, including this one: “Andrew Heller, go to hell.”

Go to hell? I just said stop doing the political
equivalent of an end zone dance. You won. You scored a touchdown. Act like you’ve
been there before.

Here’s another: “You are not living in reality. Liberals
like you are destroying this country and you are completely a fool!”

I am? Just for having an opinion that differs from
yours? My apologies. I had no idea.
Shutting up now. (Not really.)

Here’s my favorite, left by a guy holding a machine gun
in his post photo: “Now that Obama's progressive, radical, commie true nature
is out in the open, the majority will not be fooled any longer. The jig is up,
commies, you are being watched very carefully now. Problem #64 is that Obama
and the extreme left could try to destroy our country because of their failure
to convert our great capitalist country. Long live the union!”

That guy I’m not about to disagree with. Yes, sir.
Whatever you say, sir.

On a given day, ultra-conservative commenters on my
blog – and other blogs and news sites I read - outnumber commenters of other
persuasions by at least five to one, and they are not shy.

That’s fine and dandy with me. I figure I’m not shy with
my views, why should you be? Plus, I grew up in a big family with a lot of
brothers, so I learned early not to take insults personally.

But sometimes I wonder, “Where is everyone else?” Where
are the liberals? Where are the centrists in both parties? Where are the political
mutts, those people who are part liberal, part conservative? Where are the
independents and the wishy-washy? Where is that great yawping mass of
undecideds that every poll says is out there and, ironically, ultimately
decides everything? Don’t they use the Internet?

Of course they do, but why don’t they speak? Do
people who aren’t ultra-conservatives not read news sites and blogs? I can’t
think of a reason why that would be true. Everyone reads, even Sarah Palin,
although what she reads she can’t say exactly. (Note: Cheap, easy shot both intended
and enjoyed. Bwahaha.)

Do non-conservatives read news sites and blogs but
just not comment as often? At the risk of ticking off people who pose for
photos holding machine guns, ding, ding, ding, I think we have a winner.

I believe that the vast majority of people across the
political spectrum – Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, fruitcakes and more
- simply have little patience with the churlish name-calling and chest-thumping
that passes for discourse on-line today and they just don’t bother.

What I still don’t get, though, is why righty-rights
do?

Maybe it’s that talk radio thing. I don’t know. I
truly don’t.

What I do know is these folks seem really, really
steamed about things – in fact about everything. Well, being a squishy liberal,
and someone who enjoys poking beehives, I’m tempted to say what they need is a
great, big hug.